The 15th Astana Keshteri International Arts Festival was held at the Astana Opera. It was organized by the DEGDAR Humanitarian Foundation.
The festival opened with a Whitney Houston tribute concert performed by South African singer Belinda Davids. Italian rock singer Simone Romanato was the evening's special guest.
The second day featured the premiere of the Non-Stop OPERA program. Nine soloists from theaters in Astana, Almaty, and Tashkent performed 11 solo arias and six duets from 12 operas, including Rossini's Il viaggio a Reims and Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff. The orchestra was conducted by Italian Ettore Papadia. The production is planned to be included in the Astana Opera's permanent repertoire. On the final evening, the orchestra, under the direction of Belarusian conductor Evgeny Bushkov, performed works by Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, and Marcello. The orchestra also featured French oboist Jérôme Guichard, flutist Yerzhan Kushanov, and the Kazakhstan State Trio FORTE TRIO.
"Over the past 15 years, the festival has featured over a thousand artists and attracted over 100,000 spectators. 'Astana Keshteri' is a long-term investment in the development of our country's cultural heritage and the broadening of the horizons of the younger generation," noted Laura Akhmetova, director of the DEGDAR Humanitarian Foundation and the festival.
The 'Astana Keshteri' festival introduces Kazakhstani audiences to world music and strengthens international cultural ties. This year, it was held in the year of the DEGDAR Foundation's 25th anniversary.